Rodrigo Lazo. Writing to Cuba: Filibustering and Cuban Exiles in the United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. 264 pp. $25.00, paper, ISBN 978-0-8078-5594-2. Reviewed by Antonio Rafael de la Cova Published on H-LatAm (October, 2005) During the frst half of the nineteenth centu‐ United States. He examines a dozen Cuban exile ry, hundreds of Cuban political exiles arrived in publications and a Spanish royalist newspaper. the United States in three waves: 1823, 1838, and Eleven were published in New York, one in New 1848. They were feeing Spanish colonial oppres‐ Orleans, and another in Havana, during sion that denied them their basic human rights. 1848-1866. Some newspapers appeared for years, Some of them got involved in the two flibuster while others disappeared after a dozen issues or military expeditions led by Narciso Lopez that in‐ less. Many articles were published without by‐ vaded Cuba in 1850 and 1851. They were follow‐ lines to avoid Spanish government reprisals. The ing the Texas model of independence and annexa‐ author relied on incomplete collections located in tion by frst acquiring funds, weapons, and volun‐ the Jose Marti National Library in Havana and in teers in the United States for their endeavor. The scattered repositories in the United States. He an‐ expatriates created their own Spanish-language alyzes each publication's transnational content re‐ and bilingual revolutionary newspapers. They re‐ lating to nineteenth-century politics. Lazo also de‐ ceived favorable publicity in the Democratic scribes the "poetry of armed combat" published in press, while the Whig press denounced the fli‐ these periodicals and gives his own interpretation busters as outlaws and hirelings of slavery expan‐ of their metaphors and meanings. sionists. A substantial problem with this work is its Writing to Cuba is an extension of Lazo's 1998 classification as a history book, which is not the American literature dissertation "Filibustering an author's main feld of expertise. There are no pri‐ Empire: Transamerican Writing and U.S. Expan‐ mary sources cited other than the thirteen news‐ sionism," in the English Department of the Uni‐ papers the book is largely based on. Secondary versity of Maryland at College Park. Consequently, sources are also problematic. Lazo greatly relies the writer focuses on the importance of transna‐ on Tom Chaffin's Fatal Glory: Narciso Lopez and tional publications in the nineteenth-century the First Clandestine U.S. War Against Cuba H-Net Reviews (1996), cited ffteen times, for his background on gust 12, 1850, and whose papers are in the Duke filibuster events. This book has been criticized in University Library. reviews for its poor research, misspellings, inac‐ Cirilo Villaverde, the main exile fgure in this curacies, and lack of Spanish-language compre‐ work, is depicted as "a man of action" and "revo‐ hension. Lazo repeats Chaffin's error that "In‐ lutionary fghter" (pp. 100, 103, 107), emphasizing vestors from the United States in 1828 founded "his participation in flibustering expeditions" (p. Cardenas" (p. 8), instead of the Count of Villanue‐ 170). The historical record shows that Villaverde, va and Andres Jose de la Portilla. Lazo also cites who was General Lopez's personal secretary, re‐ Chaffin when stating that Lopez's last expedition fused to go on both flibuster expeditions that "included forty-nine Cubans" (p. 29), unaware that landed in Cuba, failed to join more than ffty oth‐ this group contained some Venezuelans and more er Cuban exiles who fought on opposite sides of than half of the others were Spaniards who de‐ the American Civil War, and did not take up arms serted from the Cardenas Company of the Leon during the Cuban Ten Years' War of Independence Regiment and joined Lopez in Cuba in 1850. (1868-1878). As a result of relying on weak sources, Lazo While the preface states that "This book fo‐ provides cursory biographical data on most of the cuses on the growth of a community in which the leading exile literary fgures. He writes (page 203, publication of newspapers became an anchor for n. 76): "Scholars have estimated that [Pedro An‐ writers in exile," the author does not substantiate gel] Castellon died in exile in 1856, but they have the accurate size or heterogeneity of the Cuban been unable to determine exactly where, how, or community in the United States. He describes the when. His tomb has not been found." A perusal of expatriates as "arriving in large numbers" (p. 10), newspapers from New Orleans, where Castellon and their enclaves were "rapidly growing" (p. 22), last resided, reveals that he died there on June 24, "growing" (p. 31), and "significant" in New Orleans 1856, and was interred in a local cemetery. Other (p. 42). He then cites an erroneous secondary important exile writers neglected include Jose source to indicate that "By 1853, the Cuban popu‐ Agustin Quintero and Francisco Javier de la Cruz. lation in the United States probably numbered Quintero (1829-1885), whose biography Jose several hundred" (p. 66). An analysis of the 1850 Agustin Quintero: un enigma historico en el exilio U.S. Federal census indicates that there were 1,061 cubano del ochocientos was published by Jorge persons of Cuban birth in the nation. A decade lat‐ Marban in 2001, was a noted poet, attorney, fli‐ er, the number had doubled to 2,157, and by 1870 buster conspirator, Confederate diplomat, and ed‐ there were 6,710 Cubans in the United States. itor of the New Orleans Picayune. Lazo omits Lazo provides little information about the mentioning Quintero's renowned poem "The Ban‐ newspapers that he cites. There is no estimate of quet of the Exiled" or his English-language manu‐ how many issues were printed or the number that script Lyric Poetry in Cuba, which is in the Boston were shipped abroad. For example, he briefly de‐ Public Library. De la Cruz (1804-1894) was a histo‐ scribes El Espejo newspaper as "a commercial rian, journalist, poet, and educator who landed sheet flled with advertisements for U.S.-made ex‐ with the Lopez expedition in Cardenas in 1850. port products" that "circulated in Latin America" Lazo also overlooked La Verdad collaborators Pe‐ and was "owned and edited" by Narciso dro de Aguero Sanchez, and Tomas M. Rosis, a Sa‐ Villaverde in 1882 (p. 169). In contrast, numerous vannah cigar maker and Georgia Militia private, R. G. Dun & Company credit reports (Jan. 1874- whose poetry appeared in the newspaper on Au‐ Oct. 1897) indicate that El Espejo was founded in 1873 by W. H. Wilson and Andres Cassard at 67 2 H-Net Reviews William Street, New York City. It was published on land" (p. 34). He omitted mention that these have the 20th of each month and had "a circulation of been the same aspirations of most Cuban exiles at least 10,000 ... through the West Indies, Mexico, after President John Kennedy sponsored the ill- Central & South America, & Spain." It was "origi‐ fated Bay of Pigs invasion. Lazo indicated that in nally started by and in the interest of 9 South the nineteenth century "the liberation of Cuba American Houses" and the subscription was three was inextricable from the return of exiles who dollars annually "in gold payable in advance." In were developing a different conception of the gov‐ 1879, William J. Cassard was the sole proprietor ernment that would be established on the island" after he "courted the daughter of a retired mer‐ (p. 49) but does not see a correlation with present- chant & married her & it is understood her rela‐ day dissidents. Such comparisons would certainly tives furnished some means to carry on the busi‐ annoy the Cuban government official who the au‐ ness." When Narciso Villaverde acquired the thor thanks in the preface for access to the ideo‐ newspaper in 1881, it had a "moderate" number logically protected National Library in Havana. of subscribers and by 1883 it was "making no money." The enterprise folded in 1897 after Cuban A. R. Govin won a judicial settlement against it for $1,726. This book also contains some redundancy missed by the editors. For example, the sentence "In 1854, Emilia Casanova moved with her family from Cuba to Philadelphia, where she met Cirilo Villaverde. The following year the two were mar‐ ried and settled in the New York area," appears on page 119 and again on page 131. Lazo concludes his work by refusing to com‐ pare nineteenth-century Cuban exile publications with those printed during the last fve decades in the United States because the "debates over an‐ nexation, slavery, and flibustering, [are] issues that are not relevant to the post-1959 period." The dozen publications that he analyzed all de‐ nounced totalitarianism, despotism, censorship, oppression of basic freedoms, forced exile, politi‐ cal imprisonment and execution, and champi‐ oned liberty and democratic institutions. These are the same themes addressed since 1959 in hun‐ dreds of Cuban exile publications that are stored in the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami and the ones that are still being pub‐ lished today. Lazo acknowledges that in 1852 Cuban exiles "rejoiced at the possibility that the presidential administration would provide mili‐ tary backup for a flibustering attack on the is‐ 3 H-Net Reviews If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-latam Citation: Antonio Rafael de la Cova. Review of Lazo, Rodrigo. Writing to Cuba: Filibustering and Cuban Exiles in the United States. H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews. October, 2005. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11193 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.